Vonage > Case Studies > The Trevor Project's Lifesaving Transformation with Vonage’s Contact Center Solution

The Trevor Project's Lifesaving Transformation with Vonage’s Contact Center Solution

Technology Category

Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration
Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Middleware, SDKs & Libraries

Applicable Industries

Telecommunications

Use Cases

Personnel Tracking & Monitoring
Time Sensitive Networking

Services

System Integration
Training

About The Customer

The Trevor Project is the world's largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ+) young people. The organization operates the TrevorLifeline, a 24/7 crisis support line for LGBTQ+ youth under 25. The TrevorLifeline typically has close to 300 volunteer crisis counselors between its two call centers. These counselors are required to go through over 40 hours of training before they can take calls on the Lifeline. The organization is committed to providing essential counseling services to LGBTQ+ youth, who are more than four times more likely to seriously consider suicide, make a plan for suicide, and attempt suicide than their peers.

The Challenge

The Trevor Project, the world's largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ+ youth, faced a significant challenge in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The organization needed to enable remote capabilities for their crisis counselors for the first time in its history. Prior to this, the TrevorLifeline, their 24/7 crisis support line, operated from two physical call centers on the east and west coasts. The challenge was to maintain the vital TrevorLifeline operational, despite the pandemic restrictions. The organization also needed a contact center platform that would seamlessly integrate with its newly deployed Salesforce implementation. The Trevor Project had been using a number of different applications to enable its digital services, which were not easily integrated, causing limitations in terms of how and where the counselors were able to take calls.

The Solution

The Trevor Project deployed Vonage Contact Center and integrated it seamlessly with their 2018 Salesforce implementation. This move allowed the organization to transition from technology that distracted their counselors during calls to a more streamlined and efficient system. The Vonage/Salesforce implementation enabled the counselors to work with ease and prioritize their conversations with the youth. The Vonage Contact Center provided the necessary reliability and uptime, ensuring that counselors were available, ready, and supported when they answered a call. The integration of Vonage and Salesforce also allowed the organization to integrate all the different tools that counselors needed to use, making it easier for them to find local resources to support young people looking for LGBTQ+ youth services in their area.

Operational Impact

The implementation of Vonage Contact Center and Salesforce integration significantly improved the operational efficiency of The Trevor Project. The new system allowed the organization to decentralize its call centers and enable remote capabilities for their crisis counselors, a critical need during the COVID-19 pandemic. The integration of Vonage and Salesforce also streamlined the counselors' workflow, enabling them to focus more on their conversations with the youth and less on navigating different applications. The reliability and uptime provided by Vonage gave the organization the confidence that they could reliably take calls and that counselors would be available and supported when they answered a call. The responsiveness and support from the Vonage Contact Center team also contributed to the successful transition and ongoing operations.

Quantitative Benefit

In the first year of implementing Vonage and Salesforce, The Trevor Project was able to take over 61,000 calls, a 26% increase in volume from the previous year.
The Trevor Project experienced close to 100% uptime after deploying Vonage Contact Center.
The Trevor Project successfully transitioned to a fully remote counselor staff for the first time in its history due to the COVID-19 pandemic.